How not to “witness” to an atheist

The Eastern Arizona Courier has a most unfortunate Lifestyle article titled Ask a Pastor: How can I witness to an atheist? The article starts bad and goes down hill from there starting with his definition of “atheist.”

An atheist is someone who denies the existence of God. However, before one can be an atheist and positively assert “there is no God,” he must presumptuously assume for himself the wisdom and omnipresence of God. He must essentially be everywhere and know everything to have any confidence in his theory. You might say that, in order to prove there is no God, you would have to be God. Therefore, even the atheist believes what he believes by faith. And so the bottom line is actually, whom are you going to believe: man’s reasoning or God’s Word?

Huh? That’s a jumbled word soup there. I don’t know of many real-world atheists who say with all certainty, “there is no god.” I’ve heard, “there probably isn’t a god,” or “I don’t believe in deities,” but none I know say with 100 percent certainty that there definitely “is no god.” I’m perplexed. Perhaps this pastor doesn’t know any actual atheists, non-believers, or “nones.”

So in order to witness to an atheist, you must use the Bible. He may not want to read it, but you can slip it in from time to time in your conversation. As is said of the beautiful, “It may be shown but not proved,” so we say of the existence of God.

My experience has been that most people who claim to be atheists do so for the shock value.

Yup. Nonbelievers rather enjoy the stigma of their communities. They like the “shock value” of possibly losing their job simply because they don’t believe. They enjoy enduring verbal gymnastics, straw man arguments like this article, they like being told they’re amoral, they particularly enjoy rarely expressing an honest opinion when friends and relatives constantly preach at them, strangers who never take a moment to know them as a person before assuming tons of negative assumptions.

Yup. They do it for “shock” value.

You might use some logic.

Hahahahahahaha. Thanks for the chuckle.

The Word of God is logical, practical and harmonious with every fact of nature. Be patient. Always remember that someone is watching you to see if what you have is real. Is it?